House Passes New $1.9 Trillion Spending Bill

After a wave of selling ended a strong February on weak note Friday, energy bulls have picked back up this morning, pushing prices back up 1% or more in the early going, and keeping the upward-sloping trend lines intact for now. Don’t be fooled by the big “increase” in RBOB prices from Friday, April RBOB is now the prompt contract, and is trading some 10 cents above where March left off as we transition to the summer-grade spec, but cash prices are only up around 1.5 - 2 cents so far this morning.
Friday’s selloff in energy contracts coincided with a big pullback in equity markets that appear spooked by a rise in interest rates that means borrowing money won’t be free forever. Stocks are also back on the move higher this morning after the House passed a new $1.9 trillion spending bill this weekend that includes the largest stimulus checks to date and reminds the market that both fiscal and monetary policy makers are eager to do whatever is needed to keep people spending.
Progress with refinery restarts continues across the Gulf Coast with more plants returning to rates similar to where they were at before the polar plunge, while others are still expecting several weeks to finish repairs. Tight allocations remain across much of the southern half of the country, while sporadic outages continue to be largely contained to parts of West Texas.
The shortages continue to help crack spreads for those plants that are able to operate, and Delek mentioned in an earnings call last week that it may restart its Krotz Springs, LA refinery that has been idled for months, if margins hold at current levels. Unfortunately Delek’s El Dorado Arkansas facility suffered a fire during turnaround work this weekend that injured six workers. While that fire won’t impact regional supplies since the plant was already down for the turnaround work, it is a reminder of how complex (and often dangerous) those plants are, and why it’s not like flipping a switch to bring those facilities shut by the storm back online.
OPEC & friends are meeting Thursday to discuss changed to their oil output agreement, and it seems like the market expects them to announce increases to the quota. We know many countries in the cartel are pushing to increase output, which forced Saudi Arabia to announce a unilateral production cut last year to prop up prices, so the question seems to be how much will the Kingdom allow.
Iran rejected direct talks with the U.S. over its nuclear program, a move that suggests tensions between the two countries will continue, and that Iranian oil currently sanctioned is not likely to hit the market (legally anyway) any time soon.
The CFTC weekly commitments of traders report showed new bets on lower prices decreased the net length held by money managers in WTI, ULSD and RBOB contracts last week, while Brent saw a small increase in net length held by large speculators. The net bets on higher prices held by money managers in WTI remains near a 2.5 year high despite the small pull back last week. In gasoline meanwhile, the large speculators seem to be continuing to head for the exits, in what appears to be a bet that the spring rally was actually a winter rally this year, and after prices nearly doubled it’s time for a pullback.
Baker Hughes reported four more oil rigs were put to work last week, all of which came from the Permian basin. Since the total rig count bottomed out in August, we’ve seen the total count increase in 23 out of 28 weeks, adding a total of 137 rigs. On the other hand, there’s still about 470 rigs left to add before we see drilling activity reach pre-COVID rates.
Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.
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Week 48 - US DOE Inventory Recap
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Week 48 - US DOE Inventory Recap

The API Reported Gasoline Inventories Dropped By 898,000 Barrels Last Week
Gasoline and oil prices are attempting to rally for a 2nd straight day, a day ahead of the delayed OPEC meeting, while diesel prices are slipping back into the red following Tuesday’s strong showing.
The API reported gasoline inventories dropped by 898,000 barrels last week, crude inventories declined by 817,000 barrels while distillates saw an increase of 2.8 million barrels. Those inventory stats help explain the early increases for RBOB and WTI while ULSD is trading lower. The DOE’s weekly report is due out at its normal time this morning.
A severe storm on the Black Sea is disrupting roughly 2% of the world’s daily oil output and is getting some credit for the bounce in futures, although early reports suggest that this will be a short-lived event.
Chevron reported that its Richmond CA refinery was back online after a power outage Monday night. San Francisco spot diesel basis values rallied more than a dime Tuesday after a big drop on Monday following the news of that refinery being knocked offline.
Just a few days after Scotland’s only refinery announced it would close in 2025, Exxon touted its newest refinery expansion project in the UK Tuesday, with a video detailing how it was ramping up diesel production to reduce imports and possibly allow for SAF production down the road at its Fawley facility.
Ethanol prices continue to slump this week, reaching a 2-year low despite the bounce in gasoline prices as corn values dropped to a 3-year low, and the White House appears to be delaying efforts to shift to E15 in an election year.
Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.

Values For Space On Colonial’s Main Gasoline Line Continue To Drop This Week
The petroleum complex continues to search for a price floor with relatively quiet price action this week suggesting some traders are going to wait and see what OPEC and Friends can decide on at their meeting Thursday.
Values for space on Colonial’s main gasoline line continue to drop this week, with trades below 10 cents/gallon after reaching a high north of 18-cents earlier in the month. Softer gasoline prices in New York seems to be driving the slide as the 2 regional refiners who had been down for extended maintenance both return to service. Diesel linespace values continue to hold north of 17-cents/gallon as East Coast stocks are holding at the low end of their seasonal range while Gulf Coast inventories are holding at average levels.
Reversal coming? Yesterday we saw basis values for San Francisco spot diesel plummet to the lowest levels of the year, but then overnight the Chevron refinery in Richmond was forced to shut several units due to a power outage which could cause those differentials to quickly find a bid if the supplier is forced to become a buyer to replace that output.
Money managers continued to reduce the net length held in crude oil contracts, with both Brent and WTI seeing long liquidation and new short positions added last week. Perhaps most notable from the weekly COT report data is that funds are continuing their counter-seasonal bets on higher gasoline prices. The net length held by large speculators for RBOB is now at its highest level since Labor Day, at a time of year when prices tend to drop due to seasonal demand weakness.
Click here to download a PDF of today's TACenergy Market Talk.